Nevertheless he is wrong. But if we attempt to trace his error in exact
terms, we shall not find it quite so easy as we had supposed. Perhaps
the nearest we can get to expressing it is to say this: that his mind
moves in a perfect but narrow circle. A small circle is quite as
infinite as a large circle; but, though it is quite as infinite, it is
not so large. In the same way the insane explanation is quite as
complete as the sane one, but it is not so large. A bullet is quite as
round as the world, but it is not the world. There is such a thing as a
narrow universality; there is such a thing as a small and cramped
eternity; you may see it in many modern religions. Now, speaking quite
externally and empirically, we may say that the strongest and most
unmistakable _mark_ of madness is this combination between a logical
completeness and a spiritual contraction. The lunatic's theory explains
a large number of things, but it does not explain them in a large way. I
mean that if you or I were dealing with a mind that was growing morbid,
we should be chiefly concerned not so much to give it arguments as to
give it air, to convince it that there was something cleaner and cooler
outside the suffocation of a single argument. Suppose, for instance, it
were the first case that I took as typical; suppose it were the case of
a man who accused everybody of conspiring against him. If we could
express our deepest feelings of protest and appeal against this
obsession, I suppose we should say something like this: "Oh, I admit
that you have your case and have it by heart, and that many things do
fit into other things as you say. I admit that your explanation explains
a great deal; but what a great deal it leaves out! Are there no other
stories in the world except yours; and are all men busy with your
business? Suppose we grant the details; perhaps when the man in the
street did not seem to see you it was only his cunning; perhaps when the
policeman asked you your name it was only because he knew it already.
But how much happier you would be if you only knew that these people